Preikestolen ... again!

Emma's old job as Marketing Manager for Laerdal Australia was taken by a nice guy named Dean. Dean was visiting Stavanger this week at the head office doing some training and as he is reasonably fit and outdoorsy he was pretty keen to head up to Preikestolen. This is the big rock I took Cooba, Brad and Ryan up to about 3 weeks ago. It was another magical day in Stavanger on Saturday so we jumped at the chance. Emma hasn't had the opporunity to head up there since her visit in 2004 so was also very keen.

For the regular readers I guess I don't need to get too verbose with the description of the hike up to the top, but needless to say it was again very enjoyable. There was actually almost no snow or ice to be seen this time at the top (apart from the surrounding mountains of course) so it was a very different hike.

Anyway we got to the top and found out that Dean was scared of heights! Well sitting on the edge of a vertical rock hanging over the water 600m below is probably not on height scared peoples 'to-do' list. But Dean did muster up the courage to have a look over the edge.

Emma, Cooba and I also had our photo session.

As you can see the rock and obviosuly the view is absolutely stunning. Even looking at the photos I enjoy it again.

I took an additional short hike up higher than the rock itself and the view down to the top of Preikestolen was truly amazing again. It was a bit sketchy in parts coming down as I needed to get some good angles for the photos so got into some precarious positions but was definitely worth it.

We finished up by going out to the Vågen (Harbour area) in Stavanger for a couple of nice drinks and a meal. It was jam packed being such a beautiful day and there were no shortage of Norwegian ladies out in their bra's soaking up the sun!!!! Ahh the life of an expat Aussie in Norway!

Easter Holiday

What an Easter! Here in Norway the locals love a holiday, the Easter break is from lunchtime on Wednesday until Monday. We (Joel, Emma and Cooba) packed our little VW Polo to the brim with supplies and headed off at the crack of dawn for the long drive to Oslo. One of Joel’s lecturers from the AMC in Tasmania, Jan Søholt – a native of Oslo who currently resides in Launceston, kindly loaned us his cabin for the weekend. It’s about 30 minutes north of Oslo near a town called Lillestrøm. It was Emma and the boys – Cooba, Joel, Ryan and Mitch. Most of you who read this blog will know who these people are by now.

The drive was very loooong – nearly 9 hours (with the easter traffic and long windy mountainous and coastal roads) but we arrived in one piece and were pretty excited about our rustic little cabin. Jan warned us that it was very basic – “you might prefer to spend Easter at Guantanamo Bay instead” I think were his specific words, but we found it charming. Keep in mind though no running water, no electricity, very little insulation and a long drop perched so precariously on the edge of a cliff that it took us 2 days to work up the courage to use it! It was pretty much camping but with a roof over our heads and a fantastic wood stove that we kept well stoked the whole time we were there. Here are some lovely pics of Coobs that we took on the weekend with Joel’s new camera.


Joel quickly went to work (within about 5 seconds we reckon) baptising his new purchase – a chainsaw – cutting down some trees for firewood. The cabin is situated amongst loads of fir trees and Jan said that the way to heat the cabin was to pick out a nice fir tree blocking the view and chop it down … so we did! It is a very picturesque area with a beautiful view of the lake from the cabin. The boys were pretty impressed with camping ‘norwegian style’ – we grabbed some nearby snow and added it to a few buckets for a ready made esky – although it was somewhat colder than the Aussie ones. The snow remained frozen the whole time we were there. Sure beats dropping into the servo daily for ice! The Cloudy Bay Sauv Blanc and Nøgne Ø Wit Øl never tasted so good!

The highlight of the weekend (apart from Emma’s Homemade Hot Cross Buns – they are not available here so we had to make our own) was no doubt our day trip to Lillehammer. The name may ring a bell – it was the home of the 1994 Winter Olympics. We had perfect conditions and went to Hafjell skifield where many of the Olympic events were held. Blue sky, no clouds, no wind, and reasonable snow coverage were an ideal way to test our new skis out – and we were very happy with our purchases. Here is a pic of Joel on Lillehammer with the very famous backdrop of the Olympic man cut out of the trees as well as a pic of Ryan Emma and Joel in the luxurious gondola lift heading up to the top of Hafjell for the first run of the day.

Back at the cabin we quickly made friends with some of the other locals in nearby cabins including Frøde, Geir, and Peder. Cooba also made great friends with Frøde’s Airdale Terrier Freda whom he had a bit of a crush on we think. We even got invited up to our Kjempeflott friends cabin for some drinks and a tour of their lovely renovated cabin. Here is a pic of our cabin with Mitch and Ryan cracking the top of their first beer for the weekend.



On the last night of our stay we had a fantastic dump of snow and awoke to a beautiful white soft forest. Here is a pic of the cabin the night when it started snowing and another posed shot.





We also found this ski jump 5 mins away from the cabin which actually has these polished porcelain dimpled tile tracks for use in the summer. God knows why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing (it was very scary at the top – Ryan commented he found it more scary than Preikestolen!) but it was a good climb to the top and this pic hopefully gives some perspective on how tall it was (Emma is a vague dot all the way down the bottom to the left of a green shed). We also found a bum-sliding-toboggan-thing which of course we put to good use.

We had a fantastic time and really appreciate Jan for lending us his cabin for Påske (Easter). His red shed is now fully stocked with stove-sized fir tree firewood! Hope everyone had a great holiday, we're thinking of you all.

Snakkes!

Emma and Joel.

Pics from Kev and Mari's

Hi,

Just thought I'd post a couple of extra pics that have only just come to light from the weekend we had at Kev and Mari's in Sauda (about 3 or 4 weeks ago). Don't miss the posts that Emma posted and updated about the house and her trip below this post. Just as an aside I also bought a new digital SLR camera and really good lens with some prizemoney so hopefully some of the pics will be pretty fancy from now on.

(Em and I at one of the many waterfalls that fall down the cliffs of the fjords alongside the road)

(Em near the waterfall on the other side of the road)

(Ryan near the waterfall at towards the top of the cliff. It actually looks scary when you are there with all of the water just pumping down - almost looks like an avalanche of water that is about to take you away.)

(Em and I doing what we did most of that weekend. Sitting relaxing on the couch.)

(This is a pic of Mari on the weekend just gone in Sauda. She went home again with Kev and went skiing. Its hard to believe it is the same place with blue sky - it rained non-stop when we were there!)

New House

Well guess what, we bought a house. I go away for 2 weeks and look what happens...! I haven't actually seen it yet, just the outside, but Joel has great taste and so I'm confident I will like what I see when I can look inside.

[Joel comment: I am very happy with the house. Emma Coobs and I visited it on Saturday and Sunday and I think they will both like it very much. As will any visitors who get their very own bedroom as well as option for another bedroom in the loft for other simultaneous visitors!]

Its a rekkehus (row house), one on the end. It is a couple of kms [Joel comment: actually exactly 1.5kms from the lake in the middle of town for those that know Stavanger at all - should be about a nice 15 minute walk to town - less with Cooba dragging us along!] from the centre of town, just near the hospital in Stavanger. There is a psychiatric clinic right nearby, which Joel believes is quite handy for when he manages to drive me crazy!

It has 3 bedrooms (one is configured as a study), a large living room with pot belly fireplace, a newly renovated kitchen [with integrated fridge, freezer, dishwasher] and bathroom [with varmekabler - means hot cables in the floor - so nice on cold winter nights], a terrace out the back [where coobs will have his kennel, we will have our BBQ and outdoor setting and we will probably extend it later on] and a good sized back yard. It also has an attic [they're called lofts here hon] and cellar [which is actually almost completyely renovated with plaster and downlights so we will finish this off and this can be another spare bedroom or nice storage area - we will also keep our aussie fridge down here which can be converted to a beer fridge - might even hook up the homebrew to a keg system and have the tap out the front of it]. We sign the contract on 10th April and hopefully move in at the end of may [the sooner the better]. We can't wait! All of a sudden our little flat seems so cramped!

There will be a few little improvements we can make, fence in the back yard, extend the terrace, paint and some plastering in one of the bedrooms, sand and polish the floorboards in the living area, but it is really ready to move straight in.

Very exciting!!! Here is a link to the website, it shows the same pics but you can click on the 3D section and see a bit more:
http://www.finn.no/finn/realestate/object?finnkode=9667486&sid=13apGu7XgW583914&pos=1&tot=274

Terrace

Study

Master Bedroom

Living room looking out to terrace

Living room looking to kitchen

kitchen, breakfast bar

Kitchen looking to living room

Bathroom

Bathroom

View of back of house

NYC & Melbs

Wow, what a marathon Joel's last post was. It had been a while between posts and plenty going on though, so a good read. So I left Joel on his sick bed, said "right - well I'm off to New York now", and off I went. Geez did I feel bad. Poor Joely wasn't in a good way but the show had to go on unfortunately. Had a fruitful couple of days in NY up in Wappingers Falls (1.5hrs north of NYC by train along the Hudson River). We had a storm on Friday where it snowed most of the day and night, over 6 inches. This threw everything into a bit of chaos.

Me and a colleague in NYC during the storm

I noted that the Americans seem to go into a bit of a hysteria when it snows! In Stavanger when it snows its pretty much business as usual, in the US it was all over the news channels with live reports from major arterial roads with news reporters warning of 'treacherous' conditions on the roads, stay indoors, blah blah blah. Quite funny really. Anyway I headed off to NYC by train on Saturday morning and after lots of delay getting a taxi, finally boarded the train with about 100 boozed up teenagers dressed up for St Patricks day. Everyone was heading into the city for the parade which is a huge deal and big tradition in NYC. Anyway the train journey was hell, but I made it in one piece, almost minus some ear drums. They kids were so noisy. Made me feel old!

Anyway I checked into my hotel, just near Grand Central Station and the Nato building.

Grand Central Station, NYC

Met up with Eleanor my (I think) 3rd cousin. She is from London but moved to NY with her boyfriend about 6 weeks ago. She is a fashion stylist so she rocked up looking gorgeous despite her hangover, whereas I was completely unprepared for the snow and was getting about in jeans and runners (always a good look!!) and my black puffer jacket and beanie. I looked like a wharfie and Eleanor had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion mag. Aah well, these things happen. Anyway we went to meet a girlfriend of Eleanor's, grabbed some lunch and headed for Soho where we shopped, had a pedicure and shopped some more.


Me and Eleanor, Soho

All good! Headed over to Eleanor and James' apartment in Brooklyn and grabbed some dinner nearby and headed out for a drink before I sucummed to jetlag and tiredness.

Eleanor and James

The following morning I had just enough time for a quick wander around near the hotel before heading to the airport. Didn't get to stroll through central park, visit The Met, Ground Zero or anything I hoped to do, but still had a great time and definitely got a taste for the Big Apple. Hope to head back soon with Joel.

Chrystler Building
Then went on to San Jose where I didn't see much except for the inside of the hotel. Work work work, but all went well.

Now I'm in Melbourne for a quick visit. Attended Karen and Pete's wedding on Saturday, an absolutely gorgeous affair. Karen was such a beautiful bride and everything ran smoothly, but of course it would, Karen had everything planned to perfection.

They're off on their honeymoon in Fiji now, lucky them! I've enjoyed spending some time with family and friends. I apologise in advance for not being able to see everyone, a week just isn't long enough and I decided to just try and keep things on a small scale. After all I've only been away 5 minutes (so it feels like!). I'm looking forward to heading back to Stavanger and seeing Joel and Cooba. We're starting to get to the business end of proceedings in buying a house so thats really exciting too. Will keep you all posted with any progress there.

Love to everyone,
Emma.

Nasty Norwegian Strain

Hi,

I am back again. Last week I got hit with a nasty dose of the flu. I have never been hit with a virus that hard before. As most of you who know me will know that I generally enjoy my food, well to describe how badly I was affected, I didn't eat from lunchtime Tuesday until Friday night. I think I may have had a Banana in the middle somewhere but geez it hit me hard.

Unfortunately it coincided with Emma leaving for the US. She is now in San Jose, California after being in New York over the weekend. This meant that there was no chicken noodle soup to be seen at all! Bummer. I am back at work again today and have been trying to catch up on emails and find out what has been happening in the real world.

I also managed to get a mobile phone in the meantime too which means that Em is able to contact me whilst she is away. It is one of those krone-sucking pre-paid phones but will hopefully do the job for a while.

Ryan came around yesterday and helped me bottle my first 2 brews of beer. Give them a couple of weeks and they will be ready for testing. Looking forward to it.

Unfortunately with being sick I haven't got a lot of news but I'm sure Emma being in New York will have plenty of news and will have some pics to post to show what she's been up to.

I will hopefully attend a quiz night this Thursday night although it is in Norwegian so I will need some good translators. I will also be taking Coobs for plenty of walks as I felt a bit guilty that he couldn't get much exercise last week with me laid up in bed.

Hopefully a more interesting post next time.

Cheers - Joel.

Weekend in Sauda

Hi again,

As mentioned last post we went to Sauda for the weekend. Sauda is only about a 2 hour ferry ride but about a 3 hour drive (including ferry) from Stavanger. It is located up one of the many fjords here in fjord country and has a population of around 4500 people but is known for its ski fields in the surrounding hills. The kommune (larger than a suburb but smaller than a state - essentially a shire) and the ski field had organised for a band on in the snow on the Saturday night. The band was called TNT and apparently is quite well know in Norway - although I have yet to find any evidence of them being famous! So we were crossing our fingers for good weather to enjoy some daytime and then night-time skiing in Sauda. They even have lights lighting up their ski fiends - pretty cool.


As we weren't able to bring Cooba, we dropped him off at the kennel on Friday afternoon. The kennel was actually quite nice with lots of play areas, and the ability for dogs to share a section if they get along during their stay. Cooba apparently made friends with some female dog (unsure what type) whilst playing out in the yard so they were 'teamed up' during their stay. I am not quite sure what they got up to during their stay however as cooba had lots of scratches on the inside of his back legs (just near his private parts!) so it seems as thought he had an enjoyable stay there! He was exhausted when we got him back on Sunday night!

After dropping Coobs off we drove to the ferry terminal. We had to go through two of these massive tunnels to get there. They actually go underneath two of the fjords and went down to 233 metres below sea level and are about 6 km long. So if you thought the Burnley tunnel was big - think again. They were absolutely enormous - and good fun to drive through! We made it to the ferry with a few minutes to spare (they run every 30 mins) and drove straight on board. It cost 198NOK (around $40 AUD) for the three of us (Emma, Ryan, and myself) for the 20 minute ferry journey. The ferry was rolling around all over the place as there was some big swell coming through from the North Sea but all was good (despite some fears I may have left the handbrake off).

We then had a pretty harrowing journey in the dark along these cliff edge roads that make the Great Ocean Road look like a gentle doddle. Lucky enough it was dark, misty, and snow was around so we couldn't see how far we would fall if we hit the edge.

Anyway we made it to Sauda with the car packed full with our brand new skis and plenty of grog to keep things moving! Mari (a Norwegian girl I work with) and Kev (her Aussie boyfriend) were wonderful hosts. It was Mari's parents place and they were in Italy for the week so we had the place to ourselves. Despite being at sea level, it was only a 10 minute drive up to the ski fields and we were quite disappointed that it didn't stop raining all Saturday. As a result we didn't go skiing or even make it up to the band! I guess TNT will remain a mystery for a while longer.

We kept occupied playing scrabble (English version) which was good fun as well as playing Texas hold-em poker. All good fun. Here is a pic of Kev with an interesting set of letters (you may need to click on the pic to see the letters).

The other thing we managed to do quite well was eat - and we did a lot of it. Mari's grandma (Momo - stands for mothers mother - very practical these Norwegians - although I'm not sure on the spelling) kept 'harassing' us (harassing in the best way possible) with an amazing array of food. We got home cooked Norwegian style pancakes with homemade Blueberry Jam, wonderful cookies, slices, chocolates, biscuits, etc etc. Mari and Kev also put on an amazing spread which was great - especially the breakfasts which were huge! Very enjoyable. Here is a pic of us all sitting down to one of our many meals!

Emma and I did however manage to get to use our skis! However it was simply to try them on in the lounge room when we got home (see below). Hopefully the weather improves again and I get a good chance to go skiing in the next month or two.





















Till then - Ha Det Bra!

Skis and Real Estate

Hhhmmmm. Well Joel and I went shopping last night. Quite keen to buy some skis. There are some sales on at the moment. So we both got some, Joel got 2 pairs actually, cross country and downhill. Might have paid a teeny tiny smidge over what we thought we would when we walked into the shop...but nonetheless we will be enjoying our fabulous skis long after we've forgotten about the fortune we paid for them... :)

Also I went to a real estate seminar last night. Very interesting. Some quirks about buying/selling real estate in Norway:

1. It is most common to sell your house within 2 weeks of putting it on the market
2. There is usually ONE public viewing, and most houses are sold within 24 hours of that, bids begin virtually immediately after the viewing.
3. You have 5 years to make a claim if there is unexpected/undisclosed damage to the property after you have bought it, claims can only be made if damage is over 5% of the price you paid for the house. 1 in 5 buyers make a claim, and of those about 11% are awarded 'damages'. Avg damages awarded 300,000NOK (AUD$64,000), 80% of claims are for leaky bathrooms. This has spawned a new insurance industry - sellers can hand over the risk to the insurance company who would cover a payout, and buyers can get insurance to cover them for the legal costs of pursuing a claim!
4. Property price rises in Stavanger were the highest in the whole country, they rose 29% during 2006
5. Once you put in a bid you can't withdraw it, no such thing as a 'cooling off period'.
6. 8 out of 10 Norwegians own their own home

It was a good seminar, I learned a lot.

So hope everyone has a great weekend, we'll cross our fingers for some good weather for skiing so we can give the new skis a good workout, YAY!

Emma.

Too grown up!

Well Joel and I had our appointment with the bank last night. Felt like proper grown ups for a change! We went over our 'okonomi' (finances) with the loan manager and looked at a few different scenarios. Scenario one was renting, two was buying an apartment or unit and three was buying a house called a Tommensbolig which is a full sized house that contains two flats, one on top of the other. We would live in the top one and rent the bottom one out for about $1,000-$2,000 a month (tax free). Its all very expensive but thats just the way things are over here. The salaries are higher and we've been quite conservative with our estimates. So we have asked for some money and will now wait and see how much they will give us! Neither of us like leaving Cooba inside all day so we're keen to get started and look at some houses, the one non-negotiable is that they have a secure backyard.

I'll attend a homeloan seminar tonight run by the local chamber of commerce. Joel is going to take Coobs for a big walk around sørmaker. We are getting out of town this weekend with Mari (a girl from Joel's work), her aussie boyfriend Kev and Ryan. Coobs is going to sit this one out so we're trialing a kennel that has been recommended to us via the expats network. Mari's parents house is in Sauda, about 2 or so hours drive and is near the snow fields so we might do some cross country skiing. We've stocked up on red wine and will take the poker and scrabble. Should be fun. We'll post some photos next week.

Emma.

Emma in our new buzzbox - and other pics!

As you have probably heard, the standard of living in Norway (particularly so in Stavanger) is one of the highest in the world. As such I thought it appropriate that we get a car to match the living conditions so we traded in our royal blue 1997 VW Polo for a red 1978 Porsche 911. Actually just before you quit your jobs and come and find one in Stavanger, it really isn't ours and we haven't gotten rid of our lovely Polo yet, this was the car I mentioned in the post below that our friend Alistair from the UK owns. Its a pretty cool car although the first time he took me for a ride in it, in the snow and ice, with summer tyres on, speeding through one of the many tunnels in town, I couldn't help but think of Diana and Dodi!

Anyway, I promised more photos so here is the one of Emma in the car. Also here is a pic of Stavanger from the bridge over to Grasholmen. It is quite a nice walk over to this little island where most of the yachts in Stavanger live. I am making contacts with some people in order to get some sailing experience in the North Sea. It is my dream one day to sail around the world (just cruising from sunny port to sunny port - an endless summer) so I feel that this is my first step.

Also one of Em, Coobs and I. Just near this shot on the way back we saw a deer walk out of someones front yard! It wasn't just Coobs who was a bit startled as we all kind of went "Woah ... I forgot we were in Norway!". In the background is the bridge we walked over to get to town.

And one last photo of how Cooba goes to sleep. With his head on an Australian Flag pillow. I guess he even misses the hot summer days!

Pleasant way to end the weekend!

You can only do so much waiting, so after a couple of weeks we decided it was time to open up some of the home-made Bloody Corker Cabernet-Sauvignon-Merlot Bin 1. I guess the fact that we had an impromptu gathering around with Pikey (Oz engineer at Acergy), Al (Scot engineer at SS7), Ryan (Oz engineer at SS7), Kirsty (Noggie engineer at SS7), Em, I, cheese, olives, grapes, chocolate, cookies, beer, and only a limited supply of wine, meant that we had to crack open a bottle or three to keep things happy!

Poor Em was feeling a little worse for wear with the starts of the flu, but everyone else (apart from Al who was driving his 1978 Porsche 911 home and had to be under 0.02% BAC - I've got a photo of Em driving it but will have to drag it off the camera) managed to get stuck into a bit of the home made plonk. I was quite nervous about dishing it up but everyone was pleasantly surprised at how drinkable it was - Ryan even commented that it was VDD (very definitely drinkable).

So that was a great way to end the weekend, with some wine, food, and friends. However I woke up this morning at 5:45am for my ride to work and I looked out the window and saw the trees swaying in the distance. It also started raining but I thought I would give it a go anyway. Well I probably shouldn't have. I got a puncture in the dark, and had hail hitting me in the eyeballs (one even hit my bell and I thought that it was someone trying to overtake me), nearly got blown into the North Sea over the bridge towards work by a gust of 40+ knots of wind, and got into work about 20 mins late! My shoulder was also a bit sore from nearly dislocating it on a ride through Sørmarker on Saturday with Cooba (I also got rained upon there).

Hopefully my week improves. We are planning on going up to Sauda this weekend with Mari (a Norwegian girl from my work) and her Aussie boyfriend (Kev), as well as Ryan (and maybe others). We will hopefully get a bit of skiing in with plenty of photos. Hopefully Em's flu improves by the weekend as she took the day off work today.

I promise to get more photos up on the webpage too. In the meantime here is one from the fjord tour with Clara and Ryan from last weekend.